Interaction between physical objects and digital content has historically been implemented in systems which allow physical objects, e.g., figurines, toys, action figures, etc., to interact within a game and are commonly referred to as toy-to-life systems. Existing toy-to-life systems include a peripheral device, also referred to as a portal, tethered to a gaming system hub that transfers a physical toy, figurine, and/or action figure into a virtual game by identifying the physical object and in some cases acquiring previous game data stored within the physical object.
Since the inception of the Toys to Life market there has been very little change in the technology. Currently the technology allows for the unlocking of digital characters within a game by placing an NFC enabled toy on a portal. The portal reads the details of the toy and presents a digital representation of that toy within a game. The Player then plays the game forgetting about the toy.
Although the existing portals allow consumers/users to transport their physical characters into a virtual world, e.g., a video game, and play with them, they have several drawbacks. These portals generally only allow up to three figures to be identified and/or transported into game play at a time. They are proprietary devices, thereby preventing third party games from interacting with the portal. Also, they need to be tethered to a specific gaming system to work and thus are not portable.
Therefore, a need exists for an independent device/board which allows interaction between physical and digital content which is both scalable and portable.